Wednesday and I wake up feeling somewhat strange but I put it down to the change in my medication. I’ve been on blood thinners for four years so I guess coming off them for a few days is going to be a bit odd, coupled with the antibiotics, its no surprise. I lay in for a bit before doing my vitals, which are all good, so the arithmetic of my life is still sound. I get up and have a plain breakfast with my morning meds. When I check my to do list and my cyber stuff I realise I have not posted yesterdays blog so do that before I move onto other stuff. My partner and eldest daughter go off to the hospital pharmacy to collect my next three months of chemotherapy. Today is the start of cycle 10.

My eldest daughter has talked the solicitor of my sisters estate and manged to get a response from her and in theory there will be an update soon. With that out of the way I can get on with the pressing matters of the day, like keeping warm and doing the meter readings. My intention is to contact the publishers of my book and ask them to do a second one, called the Travelling Years, which will comprise of poems I wrote in hotels and restaurants when working away from home. So my maintenance project is to prepare the manuscript to send. I also have another new book to read. It was a question on Mastermind about the Buddhist nun who wrote an award winning novel. I just caught her name as the answer and thought that it sounded interesting, so I hunted it down on Amazon and order it. Amidst all of yesterdays ups and downs I had forgotten that it had arrived. It starts with a young bereaved boy who starts to hear voices but realises they are the voice of the things around him. I am hooked already, so now I have two books on the go.

I read for quite a long time and get drawn into my new book, it is very much “up my street”. I am so taken with it’s first thirty pages I log onto Amazon and send my book sending friend a copy before returning to it. My partner goes to see her brother as they continue to wrestle with their mothers full time care. It is clearly a huge juggle and not without its stresses. While she is gone I draft an email to my American “publishers” but also follow up on the contact that my partner has found for a reasonably local publisher. I create an account with the new contact and use their instant quote facility to get and idea of how much they charge, which is reasonable, but an unknown quantity. I plan to ring them tomorrow to have a chat about what they offer. I also plan to ring the Cancer specialist nurse to ask about the discontinuation or reduction of my apixaban as it appears that my current management plan is working so far.

The Americans ring up and make me an offer. They want to publish my second book and distribute them both across twenty platforms on a global basis. They quote me a “special” price, which is a bit of a “gasper” but not so far beyond the quote pro rata that the English company has quoted. I tell them I will think about it and to ring me tomorrow. I am not sure where I stand at the moment, I do not want this to take over my life, I see it as I view gambling, it has to be money I am prepared to lose, but then this is about vanity nothing to do with high class poetic quality. I always said I wanted to publish stuff so that family and friends would have more of me, those bits that are not often, if ever, on show. Given my circumstances, time is of the essence and there is a lot to get through.

I go into the evening with projects on my mind, with football on the agenda and really good book to continue reading. Despite everything it would appear there are still fruits to be plucked in this life. Of all the things that I have done since my diagnosis this blog is the thing that I think is most useful both in achieving its original intention of keeping family and friends aware of how I am doing without the need to start difficult conversations or wondering what to ask or how to ask it, and giving me an outlet for the experience of dealing with my cancer. Everything else is being icing on the cake. I must not get hung up on how many books I sell or views I get, that way lay true madness. So tonight I am able to start Cycle 10 due to my partner and eldest daughter collecting my Chemo meds for me, so it is onwards for me.